Hundreds of friends, colleagues attend wake for Trooper David Cunniff

Family, friends and colleagues attended the wake for New York State Trooper David W. Cunniff, held Thursday at Grace Fellowship Church in Watervliet. Cunniff, a nine-year veteran of the force, died Dec. 17 from injuries sustained during an accident on the New York State Thruway the night before in Amsterdam.
Photos by Mike McMahon — The Record

WATERVLIET >> More than a thousand friends and colleagues of State Trooper David W. Cunniff gathered at Grace Fellowship Church in Watervliet for calling hours Thursday evening.

Cuniff died Tuesday of injuries sustained when his police cruiser was rear-ended by a tractor trailer on Monday evening. It occurred shortly after Cuniff had pulled over a car for speeding on the Thruway near Exit 27 in Amsterdam.

“He was a class act,” said Albert Dorpfeld, a senior dispatcher out of the Thruway state-wide senior operations center. “As far as I’m concerned, he was an exemplary member of the state police family.”

Dorpfeld met Cunniff during a summer camping trip to Lake Sacandaga in the Adirondacks in 2009. He described Cunniff as a “kind of soft spoken,” and a man who had “a presence about him.”

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Cunniff, 35, of Duanesburg, was a nine-year state police veteran who had been working with Thruway patrol, Troop T, since 2009. He is survived by his wife and two young sons.

“Everyone is heartbroken about him because of his kids and it being Christmas time,” said Dorpfeld. “It’s truly terrible.”

Others described a man who had a talent for music, and a passion for guitar. He was a member of Grace Fellowship Church for 14 years, where he would occasionally serve.

Nicholas Ovitt, of Indian Lake, a distant cousin of Cuniff’s, knew the trooper through family functions several times a year. He remembered a “great man” who was “very funny” and “witty,” and devoted to his family.

Ovitt and Dorpfeld both paid their respects on Thursday, waiting in a line that stretched outside the auditorium, and was, at times, 100 people long.

The Funeral Service for Trooper Cunniff will be held at 11 a.m. on Friday at Grace Fellowship Hall, located at 20 Delatour Road in Watervliet.

Cuniff was inside his patrol car behind the car he had pulled over on Interstate 90’s eastbound lanes around 8:20 p.m. Monday, when his cruiser was hit by the big rig and he was partially thrown from his vehicle, State Police Superintendent Joseph D’Amico said. The truck also hit the car, injuring the driver.

The trooper suffered massive head trauma and was airlifted to Albany Medical Center, where he died Tuesday afternoon, the superintendent said.

The tractor-trailer was traveling east in the right lane and drove off the road for some unknown reason near where the trooper’s car was idling with its emergency lights on. The truck slammed into the back of the trooper’s car, sending it 50 yards into an embankment, then rammed the other car, moving it 75 yards and landing on top of it, according to D’Amico.

The truck driver, Gary Blakley, 65, of Ridgeway, Ontario, Canada, was not injured. He could be charged under the state’s 2011 “move over” law, which requires motorists to slow down and move over if possible when approaching police and emergency vehicles pulled over alongside the road. Three months after the law went into effect, Trooper Kevin Dobson was killed when he was hit by a vehicle while issuing a speeding ticket alongside a highway in suburban Buffalo.

Cunniff’s death is the second within the past several weeks involving an on-duty trooper. On Nov. 20, Trooper Ross Riley died after falling from a ledge in a gorge in a state park in western New York during a training exercise. The last death among the members of Troop T was Trooper Robert W. Ambrose, 31, who was killed on December 19, 2002, when his police vehicle was struck from behind by a vehicle on the Thruway in Yonkers.

Ian Benjamin can be contacted at 270-1287. The Associated Press contributed to this report.